An ongoing adventure of travel and living while using a wheelchair. Tim has been disabled from birth. Darryl is his father and caregiver who travels with him.
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Friday, September 28, 2012

TRANSIT REPORT: Sacramento, California 2012

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

mav under CC-BY-SA license

The capitol of the Golden State has a fairly decent system. When in the area, especially on weekdays, you'll want to take advatage of it as the traffic here can be pretty unbearable at times.

Sacramento Regional Transit - or the RT - runs a network of buses and 37.5 miles of light rail covering a 418 square mile service area but for some reason does not serve the airport (Yolobus provides this service).

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

lensovet under CC-BY-SA license

Light Rail consists of three lines, the Blue, Gold, and Green. In practice, it's kind of like four lines because the Blue line goes both north and south of the downtown area so it's like a line to the north and a line to the south. To the north, the Blue line's terminus is the Watt/I-80 station near McClellan Field (formerly Air Force Base). The south end of the line is at Meadowview Road, about 4 miles south of downtown. The Gold Line comes in from the east. It starts in Folsom and continues past downtown to the Amtrak station, connecting with the Capitol Corridor train. The Green Line runs from 7th and Richards, north of downtown, to the 13th Street Station downtown. All light rail lines converge in a transit plaza two blocks west of the Capitol Building. Here is the system map.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

Griffin5 at en.wikipedia under CC-BY-SA license

Buses handle the rest of the area and are useful to get to Old Sacramento, Raley Field, and ARCO Arena. Here is the system map.

The basic fare for both bus and light rail is $2.50 for adults and $6 for a day pass. Persons with disabilities get half off both of those fares.

Yolobus - As noted above, if you're flying into Sacramento, this is your only transit option. The cost is $2.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

Todd Evans under CC-BY-SA license

The Capitol Corridor is a commuter rail service provided by Amtrak. It connects downtown Sacramento with Auburn and Roseville to the Northeast and the Bay Area to the west with the terminus in San Jose. The service from San Jose runs via Fremont, Hayward, Oakland, Martinez, Fairfield, and Davis. Fares vary according to distance. Check the website for more details.

All the above transit options are 100% wheelchair accessible.

We've personally found the transit in Sacramento to be a great way to go, especially during the week. If you're there on the weekend and have a car, you might want to use that instead but transit will still keep you connected if you don't.